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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325593">lasts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltines/pseuds/saltines'>saltines</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Flustered Catra, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, POV Third Person, Pining, Short One Shot, Vignette, wtf gay little cat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:01:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,258</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltines/pseuds/saltines</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a last time for everything, Catra had always thought somehow. </p><p>All of it, the anger, the resentment, the loneliness that had pooled like bile at the back of her throat and left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue, all of it felt so distant, now.</p><p>Everything, Catra thought, these now useless fragments of the past she’d stupidly kept for as long as she could, these timid, unspoken sentences she’d held onto all these years, these last few shreds of something that in her core made her feel so wonderful and tender and warm, that she knew no one else could touch and yet wanted to protect more than anything else in the universe, would disappear along with her, gone for good. </p><p>These were the only things she knew, lasts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora &amp; Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lasts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“...I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s nice seeing you again, Horde scum.”</p><p> </p><p>Catra said nothing, at first. She kept her back flush against the force-field wall, her head tilted slightly to her right so that Glimmer caught only a glimpse of her eye, blue and glossy with a sheen akin to tears that had welled up, but clung stubbornly to their spherical enclosure. </p><p> </p><p>“Afraid I can’t say the same, Sparkles,” Catra ruffled the hair on the back of her neck and behind her ear, where tufts of silver fur used to be. Had it been months, perhaps, or years, since she’d let them grow out? Either way, no sign of her old self, naive—hopeful, even—remained. All of it, the anger, the resentment, the loneliness that had pooled like bile at the back of her throat and left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue, all of it felt so distant, now. Foreign, almost. “Any word from your dumb squad or whatever?” </p><p> </p><p>“You’re worried about her,” Glimmer said, with a questioning inflection, and she knew there and then she needed not mention Adora’s name for Catra’s ears to have twitched ever so slightly the way they did at the reference, as best as she tried to keep them still.  </p><p> </p><p>“There’s no reason to hide it, really,” she knew her temperamental companion would give her hell to pay for being so pushy, but Glimmer couldn’t help chuckle at the thought of Catra feeling anything other than, well, angry. “It’s just the two of us here, you know. And you’ve been friends for as long as you’ve known each other, haven’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not Adora’s…” Catra growled, her guttural voice trailing off into an almost whisper. She had managed to mumble ‘friend,’ but doubted it was the right word at all, “...anymore.” The words lay suspended in the air for a moment, and Catra’s eyes registered a slight look of shock about them, but Glimmer chose to say nothing. With everything that had happened up until this point, she knew not to distress the already thin sheet of ice she tread on around Catra any further.</p><p> </p><p>Catra, on the other hand, scoffed at herself, for coming here despite Prime’s strict orders, for humoring a sworn enemy of the Horde, for letting her see parts of a previous self she’d rather have buried in the deepest corners of the known cosmos, never again to be found. She stood up from where she had crouched down on the floor, her back to Glimmer’s, and walked away briskly without so much as another word.</p><p> </p><p><em>That’s right</em>, she thought, <em> everything’s different now. No use getting riled up over something lost</em>. Not that she felt sure it had ever once existed in the first place.  </p><p> </p><p>This was the last of their few decent conversations before this morning, and it had been nights since Catra had slept. The exact number, she couldn’t quite pinpoint—out in space days and nights alike were enveloped in darkness, illuminated only in passing when Prime’s ships went on patrol, obliterating any remnants of life left afloat in a flash. </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, if she squinted hard enough, they looked like stars. </p><p> </p><p>Of course, Catra only ever chanced upon them whenever she roamed outside what the clones called the “guest’s resting quarters,” which, she had thought, seemed an awfully roundabout way to say ‘prison cell.’ </p><p> </p><p>Earlier today (or was it the same day, still?) Catra had sent Glimmer off, confident now that Prime would never get his hands on Adora. She felt a sudden twinge in the pit of her stomach at the thought. “Your Adora,” he would always say, with that all-too-knowing and all-too-stupid smirk of his that she’d have loved to wipe off of his face with her own clawed fists, if she had only had the opportunity. As if he knew them. As if he knew the kind of relationship they had. <em> Yes</em>, that sounded right, this time. <em> Had</em>, in past tense. </p><p> </p><p>It was too late, now, anyway. Nothing awaited her after this was all over, that much Catra knew.</p><p> </p><p>To Prime’s credit, the ersatz guest room wasn’t half as shabby as she had anticipated, certainly no worse than the tarps she had used as makeshift beds in the few nights she’d spent at the Crimson Waste. What she hated, if she were being honest, was the silence. </p><p> </p><p>Back in her days as a cadet Catra needn’t worry about having to hear the sounds of her own breathing. No, there were other things, far greater things, that had kept her from having to focus on how breathing had become one of the most difficult travails she’d had to consciously endure, especially on Shadow Weaver’s worst days.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She thought it ludicrous to admit even to just herself, but Catra had always enjoyed listening to Adora, breathing softly, fast asleep after a bout of thrashing around on her cot until Catra climbed down from her bunk and wrapped her tail in the gentlest motion as possible around Adora’s ankle, so as not to wake her. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Idiot. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Catra struggled to distinguish them, these muted, rhythmic, painfully comforting breaths, from the draft breezes that occasionally swept across the barracks. Sometimes they’d become so faint, so indistinct, it felt as if they’d mixed with her own. She blushed, and furrowed her brows. <em> Why think of such stupid things, now</em>? She’d always sleep at the foot of Adora’s bed anyway, so this was, in every sense of the word, impossible. </p><p> </p><p>She remembered the night Adora left. She had made Force Captain, one of the youngest in the platoon, a badge of pride Catra wore but couldn’t quite say aloud. Then again, there were a lot of things she’d left unsaid.</p><p> </p><p>“Finally,” Catra said, “We’re about to set foot outside this wasteland and see less of Shadow Weaver’s dumb face. Finally.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, picture it,” there was a smile in Adora’s voice, her amusement of course arising from Catra’s unsung talent of lifting her mood, almost so effortlessly each time. (The latter, naturally, thought it an expression of the former’s excitement at her promotion.) There rang in Adora’s voice a tinge of uncertainty, too, but Catra couldn’t place it back then. “One day we’ll have seen all of Etheria, and maybe parts of it that not even the Horde has reached.”</p><p> </p><p>“Promise?” she had meant to ask, as she was wont to do, but sleep had found her before she could realize it.</p><p> </p><p>There was a last time for everything, Catra had always thought somehow. These were the only things she knew, lasts. <em> I guess we’ll never get to, huh? </em></p><p> </p><p>Everything, Catra thought, these now useless fragments of the past she’d stupidly kept for as long as she could, these timid, unspoken sentences she’d held onto all these years, these last few shreds of something that in her core made her feel so wonderful and tender and warm, that she knew no one else could touch and yet wanted to protect more than anything else in the universe (and to her own surprise, at that), would disappear along with her, gone for good. </p><p> </p><p>And, yet, she wasn’t afraid. In what might be her last night in this vast expanse of everything and nothing all at once, all Catra could think, despite all her efforts to quiet the thumping in her chest she had managed to subdue for so, so long (far too long), was that Adora was safe, and it was, to her, more than enough reason to believe that everything, truly, was worth it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have Phoebe Bridgers to thank for the line "There was a last time for everything," which I borrow fondly from her record, 'Halloween.' Likewise, the phrase "smile in Adora's voice" takes inspiration from the boygenius track, 'Ketchum, ID.'</p><p>I haven't written prose in like 3 years, but I hope you like it :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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